20 things to about late General Sani Abacha who died exactly 20 years ago

In rememberance of her late father, Gumsu Sani Abacha, this morning wrote, '20
year's gone by... may ALLAH swt bless your soul. May he forgive your
shortcomings and may Aljannah Firdaus be your final abode. Ameen. ALLAH
ya jikan ka da rahamar sa. We miss you so much'.

Late General Sani Abacha, born on September 20, 1943. He was
Nigeria’s military head of state from November 17, 1993 to June 8, 1998
when he died suddenly.

It is exactly 20 years since he died and below are major things to remember about the late dictator!

1. A Kanuri originally from Borno State, General Sani Abacha was born and brought up in Kano state, which he made his home.

2. He married a Shuwa Arab, Maryam, also from Borno state, in 1965
and they had six boys and three girls. The first child, Ibrahim, died in
a plane crash in 1996.

3. The last of their children was born in Aso Rock in 1994 when
Abacha was 50 and his wife 47. The boy was named Mustapha, supposedly
after Abacha’s chief security officer, Hamza al Mustapha.

4. Abacha was the first and only military head of state who never skipped a rank to become a full-star general.

5. Abacha announced the coup that brought an end to the government of
President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983, and brought Major-Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari to power.

6. After Buhari was overthrown in a palace on August 27, 1985, it was
Abacha that announced the chief of army staff, Major-Gen. Ibrahim
Babangida, as the new military president and commander-in-chief of the
armed forces in an evening broadcast (the coup speech was read by
Brigadier Joshua Nimyel Dogonyaro).

7. On appointment as chief of army staff in 1985, he caused a stir
when he said the issue of “second in command” to Babangida had not been
resolved, even though Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, as chief of general staff,
was understood to be holding the position. It was later resolved in
favour of Ukiwe.

8. Abacha was commissioned 2nd lieutenant in 1963 after he had
attended the Mons Defence Officers Cadet Training College in Aldershot,
England.

9. He was believed to have participated fully in the July 1966
countercoup, which led to the death of the head of state, Major-Gen.
Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and subsequently resulted in the civil war.

10. Officially, he did not overthrow the interim national government
in 1993. The head of government, Chief Ernest Shonekan, resigned and
Abacha, being the secretary of defence and the most senior member of
government, took over. Unofficially, it was a bloodless coup.

11. He was known as a man of “few words and deadly actions” and he
demonstrated this as head of state with one of the most brutal regimes
Nigeria has ever had. There was massive crackdown on the media, civil
rights groups and pro-democracy campaigns.

12. Two of the most important recommendations of the 1995
constitutional conference he set up are: 13% derivation for
oil-producing areas and six geo-political zones.

13. He never held a non-military appointment in his career until he
became minister of defence in 1990 (later re-designated secretary of
defence in 1993). He was a Lt. Gen then.

14. His supporters describe him as a good economic manager and that
he stabilised exchange rate at N22/$1 but the unofficial rate was
N80/$1. This created colossal rent-seeking, with many “chosen”
associates buying at the official rate and reselling at four times the
rate in the black market.

15. It was under Abacha that Nigeria became a perpetual importer of
petroleum products, as all the refineries packed up. However, 17 years
after his death, Nigeria is still heavily dependent on fuel imports.

16. An unforgettable phenomenon under Abacha was the importation of
“foul fuel” which had an offensive odour and damaged car engines.

17. He was instrumental to the restoration of peace and democracy in Sierra Leone and Liberia after years of civil wars.

18. He increased fuel price just once in his four-and-a-half years in
office and set up the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, which was widely
acknowledged to have performed well in infrastructural development and
intervention programmes in education, health and water.

19. His wife set up what is now known as the National Hospital,
Abuja. It was originally named National Hospital for Women and Children
before it was upgraded into what is intended to be Nigeria’s no. 1
public hospital.

20. His death is shrouded in mystery: the most popular version is
that he died in the midst of Indian prostitutes flown in from Dubai but
the official version is that he died of heart attack. A more likely
story is that he was “eliminated” to end the political crisis in
Nigeria.